Bowling

Have you ever gone bowling?  I don't know if bowling is something that has gone completely out of style these days or not.

My dad was a good bowler and for most of his adult life, he regularly bowled on a league, sometimes two leagues, if I remember correctly.

As a teenager, my brother set pins in a bowling alley a couple of blocks from our home.  This was, of course, before automatic pin setters were installed in all alleys.  Prior to that, the teenage boys who took on that job had to be quick and pay attention at all times.

When I was in college, there was a small bowling alley in the town and I frequently double dated with a good girlfriend, the guy she was going with and . . . now this is weird but I can't for the life of me remember who was my date.  (Oh, my brain cells must be elsewhere tonight or else that info is buried so deeply that I can't bring it forth at the present moment.  What do you want to bet I'll wake up in the middle of the night tonight trying to remember who that guy was.)  Anyway, the four of us all liked to go bowling and did so quite a few times.

One New Year's Eve, many (many!) years ago, I had a date with an old friend from high school.  (I do remember who he was.)  The company he was then working for had a huge holiday gala on that night which we attended.  The party was okay, but the company was a large one and since he was a fairly new employee, he didn't know a lot of the people.  I knew no one except my date.  We left before midnight.

As he was driving me home, he suddenly asked, "You wanna go bowling?"  

Why not?  To a bowling alley we went.  Upon arrival, there were only a couple of other alleys occupied.  Evidently, bowling wasn't an activity most people chose to do on New Year's Eve. 

I can still remember the dress I had on.  A sleeveless, emerald green brocade with matching long-sleeved jacket that ended at the waist.  Very classy!  Lucky for me, the dress wasn't a long one, but ended just above the knee.  I'm sure the rented bowling shoes added some real style to my whole look.

What fun the two of us had that night.  We bowled three games and I beat him at every one scoring just over 200 in the last game.

So, have any of you ever gone bowling?  What memories does thinking about your bowling experiences bring to mind.  Did this silly post jog a memory of a personal bowling experience?  Do tell!